I made a big effort for today’s photo challenge…I got the ladder out of the shop to get up on the roof…feels like I’m cheating! But, I do love having these two living in our yard. This is papa Great Horned owl.

The owls were NOT cooperating for me today; they wouldn’t look at me no matter how much noise I made…they were getting their last bit of shut eye before the sun went down…and their night began! And I ran out of daylight. This is our resident pair that live in the trees in our yard.

Birds do the most stupid things sometimes…but then, they just don’t understand us humans!

A few days ago I spied a couple of house sparrows hanging around one of the horse trailers. Yesterday I took the trailer to work Colt on some buffalo and spied the sparrows again. Low and behold their beautiful nest…built up under the gooseneck of the trailer.

I had to remove the nest…and was glad that there weren’t any eggs or chicks in it yet. Can you just imagine driving away with their chicks in the nest?!?

I feel bad…they had done such a beautiful job of shaping lots of horse hair, twigs, moss and even some bailing twine (the blue) into a very comfy nest. Ahhhh…they’re starting all over again somewhere else because I haven’t seen them back at the horse trailer!

Spring is really making us feel its presence…but there WILL be snow storms before spring is through!! Today was a balmy 52 degrees without any wind…just a beautiful day…seems that March has come in like a lamb…we’ll see what else it has to offer us as the days go by.

I’ve got two photos again today…I just couldn’t make up my mind…and I reserve the right to do whatever I want!

Two days ago, my daily photo was of our first newborn calf…soppin’ wet and dirty. Well, momma cow Ellie Mae got her all cleaned up and presentable. We’re dubbin’ her as “Early Girl” since she was 3 weeks early…not sure what the deal is on that…but she’s healthy and full of vigor so that’s what counts!

Here she is in all her pretty red and white fur; and she’s sporting her new ear tag we put on her today. This year’s calves are the first for their sire “Herfy” (a Hereford bull), and the first for us to have any white markings on the calves…let alone be red and not black! Early Girl has what is termed as a “brockle” face with her splotched face markings.

My second photo is staying with the House Sparrow theme…they seem to be thinking it’s nesting time obviously…

These House Sparrows love the barn too…this lil’ one was having fits at me this morning as I was cleaning manure from the stalls and runs!

Two photos today…here he’s on top of the barn chirping very loudly at me…

…below he’s on the gate pacing back and forth showing me how tough he is! They make their nests in the ends of the round metal tubes that we use for railings in the runs. I can’t help but laugh at them!

While searching for signs of our resident Great Horned Owls and other birds in the rim rocks, the only evidence of bird activity I found were these swallow nests from last year. When the swallows return, the sky will be streaming with these very active birds!

We had a couple of inches of snow in the morning which you see on the ledges. Obviously the other splattered “white stuff” originated from the birds!

I did see our first Robin of the year a couple of days ago…a nice fat one too!